Alex Salmond humiliated after SNP's Budget defeated on casting vote

Alex Salmond was humiliated after his administration's £33billion spending
plans were rejected by one vote amid farcical scenes at Holyrood.

By Simon Johnson, Scottish Political Editor

7:51PM GMT 28 Jan 2009

Two Green MSPs held the First Minister to ransom by demanding £33million for a free insulation scheme in return for giving him the parliamentary majority he needed.

John Swinney, the Scottish finance minister, capitulated and promised the money, but they voted down the Budget after deciding his pledge contained too many caveats.

A stunned Mr Swinney pledged to introduce a new version as soon as possible and Mr Salmond indicated his administration would resign if this was also blocked.

As predicted in the Daily Telegraph on Tuesday, the Greens' opposition led to a tie, with 46 MSPs on each side and Alex Fergusson, the presiding officer, given the casting vote.

According to parliamentary protocol, he has to vote in favour of the status quo, which meant rejecting the new Budget for 2009-10 and keeping the current version, which is £1.8billion smaller.

Mr Salmond lambasted the decision, accusing those who voted against his plans of jeopardising Scottish jobs and the economy.

The First Minister said: "The government cannot stay in office unless we can get a Budget through. Because of the economic crisis we find ourselves in, we have an obligation to get the Budget through."

But Labour and the Greens said the decision was punishment for the shambolic and tardy manner in which SNP ministers had conducted negotiations with the opposition parties.

Even as the final Budget debate took place yesterday afternoon, Mr Salmond was frantically arranging for notes to be passed to Mr Harvie in the chamber and inviting him to an impromptu meeting.

Iain Gray, the Scottish Labour leader, threatened that if the new Budget meets the same fate, he will table a vote of no confidence.

If the latter is passed, or Mr Salmond resigns, then MSPs have 28 days to select a new First Minister. If they fail, an election is called.

Mr Gray said he hoped the Nationalists could bring forward new proposals that would "command the confidence" of the Scottish Parliament.

But he added: "They are in this position as a result of their own arrogance and incompetence.

"They've known for weeks and months what they needed to do. They took it to a ridiculous degree of brinkmanship where you have the First Minister of Scotland skulking around the back of the (Holyrood) chamber trying to negotiate a deal to get them off the hook."

This attack was echoed by Patrick Harvie, the Greens' leader at Holyrood, who said his party had presented Mr Swinney with its £100million-per-year plan for free insulation last October.

He said: "This process has been going on for months now and this process should have been tied up long before the last-minute wrangling we saw today."

Mr Harvie said he took "no pleasure" in voting down the Budget, but a final increase in the insulation funding that Mr Swinney announced just before the crucial vote contained "too many caveats".

In particular, he said he was concerned that the £33m was not all 'new' money and included existing funding allocated by councils to tackle fuel poverty.

Mr Swinney needed the support of at least two other parties to get the spending plans passed and the 16 Scottish Tory MSPs agreed to a deal in return for a £60m town centre regeneration fund.

Independent MSP Margo MacDonald was also won over, with Mr Swinney pledging £3.5m of extra spending for Edinburgh, but the 16 Scottish Liberal Democrats said they would vote against.

Labour's 46-strong group at the Scottish Parliament decided on Tuesday to oppose the plans after Mr Swinney offered them only a third of the number of new apprenticeships they demanded.

Holyrood's tight parliamentary arithmetic meant the SNP was relying on the two Greens, Mr Harvie and Robin Harper, supporting the Budget or abstaining.

Discussions between the two sides continued until moments before a debate on the Budget that preceded the final vote.

Mr Swinney then announced £22m for the insulation scheme, prompting an angry Mr Harvie to respond that he would only accept a 50 per cent increase on that figure, £33m.

Until a new Bill is passed, the Scottish Executive has to rely on the spending plans for 2008-09, with monthly spending limited to one-twelfth of that financial year.

If no Budget is in place by the end of March, emergency public finance arrangements come into effect.